The Wine World Gone Crazy: I guess wine ratings do mean everything
May 3, 2008 by michael
If you frequently visit the forums of the major wine publications, you’ve been noticing a fervor of activity as of late regarding the 2005 vintage of Bordeaux wines. As most of you are probably aware, Bordeaux is one of the premier wine regions in the world. Each year more than 700 million bottles of Bordeaux wine (both white and red) are produced while people (enthusiasts and speculators) across the world wait anxiously for their release. Bordeaux wines are so popular that you can buy them up to two years before their release (called buying “futures”). These “futures” are intended to allow wine enthusiasts to secure bottles of their favorite, highly sought after wines year in and year out at a set “release price”. The reward of buying futures is that in a good vintage, such as 2005, the wines tend to go up in cost by the time the reach the market. This is especially true when a vintage is over-hyped (again as 2005), as is even more so when the US Dollar is very weak against the Euro.
The chatter and chaos over the 2005 vintage has been around for over two years. Since the spring of 2006 when the first barrel samples were rated, the experts have been writing and us readers have been anxiously reading the “in barrel” tasting reports. At first glance, the futures price for the first growths ranged from $600 to around $1000 per bottle. Although this seems outrageous, there are thousands of wealthy wine enthusiasts and speculators ready to pay top dollar for a great wine or potential great wine investment. The futures prices on other wines range from $15 - $300 or more- these wines including the Second through Fifth Growths, as well as unclassified Bordeaux. Overall, there were a lot of great wines to be bought on futures in the $100 or less price range that should end up being incredible wines when they fully develop in the next 20 years or more.
This past Thursday (5/1/08) the world had an opportunity to witness how absolutely insane the wine world can be. We are all familiar with wine ratings, and love them or hate them, they strongly influence the wine market from the vineyard to a store shelf, all the way to how much someone enjoys a particular wine. Ratings became popular in the late 1970’s when Robert Parker launched his Wine Advocate. More than 35 years later, though, at 6:30 PM EST on May 1, 2008, Parker released his 2005 Bordeaux ratings. After weeks of speculation and discussion on dozens of different bulletin boards and forums around the world, enthusiasts and speculators finally had what they were waiting for: a list of numbers judging how one person (albeit an expert whom I respect greatly) thought a bunch of grape juice from France was from the 2005 vintage.
Here’s how ridiculous this whole thing has become: Many people were outraged that wines they paid hundreds of dollars for were rated 95, rather than 98 points or more. These people are so caught up in the numbers, they don’t stop to think that the ratings are what ONE PERSON (again, an expert) thought about the wines. Regardless of how great a wine critic is at evaluating a wine, taste is completely subjective and there is no reason to believe any wine the experts give 100 points will be an outstanding wine when it hits your unique palate. Alas, these folks don’t care to think or drink for themselves.
Even worse from a wine culture and economy perspective are the speculators: those who invested in large amounts of the premier wines hoping for Parker praise in the form of high ratings. Once the ratings were released, they would hope to resell their “investments” for quite the premium as those folks I mentioned above are now ready to fork over their money for the “classic” wines. What this does for the wine world in general is drive up prices on these wines at release as the producers figure if people will pay, why not get that money themselves?
Both the enthusiasts and the speculators were even more upset since in this “vintage of the decade, century, millennium” Parker only rated two wines as being “perfect”, or 100 points (whereas James Suckling of the Wine Spectator gave 9 wines a perfect rating). How could this be? How could the greatest vintage ever only produce two perfect wines? I think someone forgot to tell everyone that the juice that was in the bottle last year before the ratings came out is the same juice that’s in the bottle today. How many people out there can really tell the difference between a 98 and a 100 point wine, anyways?
At the end of the day, I had a good laugh (to get in an the laughs, check out the threads at MarkSquires and WineSpectator)! No offense if the scores affected you in any way, but it’s your own fault. Buy wines you are going to drink yourself and don’t get caught up in the numbers. While many of you are out there buying up 2005 Bordeaux’s that won’t be ready to drink for 20 years or more, I’ve been buying Bordeaux from the 1970’s and 1980’s at a fraction of the cost. I did pick up around a case of 2005 Bordeaux on futures, but nothing over $50 and all based on producers I’ve liked in the past.
It’s worth mentioning that the crowd I found to be least upset by the release of these rating is the group over at WineLibraryTV Forums. Perhaps these are the more down to earth, in it for the juice bunch? As it is overall a younger crowd, maybe many can’t yet afford these wines. Or, maybe, just maybe people are “trusting their pal” (palate) as Gary always tells them and are waiting to taste the wines for themselves before buying in to all the crap.
In the end, are scores useful? Sure they are. Once you understand a critic and their palate, you can figure out what wines to buy and what wines to avoid in a particular price range. That said, I don’t think it’s possible from a purely biological standpoint to say that every wine ‘Reviewer X’ likes, I will like just as much. Use ratings as a guide to what wines to try and go from there. Further, even more important than that magical number that is the wine rating, is the tasting note itself. These are almost always a better way to evaluate whether your not the wine is something you may enjoy.
On a final note (this is getting long, I know): 2005 was an outstanding vintage in Bordeaux (and all over France) and I suspect these wines will only get better. My advice is to buy a bunch that are still affordable, get some friends together that have a bunch, and start pulling corks. This is the ONLY way you’ll know if you made good or bad decisions on your 2005’s and will give you time to start trading the wines you don’t like!
So what about those First Growths price (per bottle) at release and price now?
- Château Lafite-Rothschild: Release: $850 Current Price: $1200
- Château Margaux: Release: $1080 Current Price: $1800
- Château Latour: Release: $1100, Current Price: $1800
- Château Haut-Brion: Release: $930, Current Price: $1500+
- Château Mouton Rothschild: Release: $680, Current Price $1100
- None first-growth of note: 2005 Chateau Ausone: Release: $2000 , Current Price: $4000
To think, I could buy a case of each of these at current price…or a 2008
Maserati Quattroporte. I think I’ll take it in Black.
Hi Michael,
Great analysis on an interesting topic. I tend to agree that numerical ratings have become quite the driving force on both the supply and consumption end of the wine market. As most people would probably agree I’ve had many 90 pt wines that I thought were quite bad, as well as many 85 pt wines I thought were incredible. Unfortunately without a more objective or reliable system in place it is difficult to move away from the current system as for us consumers spending tens even hundreds of dollars on a bottle of wine. Though not perfect it does give us some sort of starting point of what wines to try and a few to avoid. I would almost never seek out a wine that multiple reviewers gave 80 points or less.
Mike - Nice work, thoughtful analysis. Again, the Italian tradition that I’m from, while appreciating the occasional rarefied vintage, sees wine more as an every day part of a proper meal. The speculation, hype, and moneyed interests have indeed run amok in Bordeaux. Still, we’re not without hope, particularly in your assessments & recommendations. I’ll have to check out the Wine Library TV forums. Also, I enjoy reading Alice Feiring’s In Vino Veritas, as she tries to save the world from “Parkerization,” a noble quest, indeed. Still, how far removed are we from your previous, very grounded piece on QPR?
Mike, Just came across this relevant quote, from a post in Eric Asimov’s “The Pour,” writing about a new book from Robin Goldstein:
“The Wine Trials” makes the case that people’s buying decisions are influenced by many factors, including price, marketing, power of suggestion, etc. The book suggests that if you take away all of these factors and make buying decisions strictly on the grounds of what tastes best in the glass, everyday wine drinkers prefer cheaper wines to more expensive wines.
You know it has little to do with what one person thinks and have much more to do with the resale value of the futures those guys purchased.
Michele: There’s a reason some of my favorite wines come from Italy! Also, regarding that quote: I would actually disagree with that statement if you say “everyday wine enthusiasts” as I certainly prefer a majority of more expensive wines (relative to the normal everyday $15-20 bottle). To be clear, I do think a majority of people would be just as happy drinking cheaper wines, but for the most part, people who have developed a taste for one type of wines (Brunello for instance) aren’t going to be as satisfied drinking $15-20 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano for example. Thanks for the comments and link though, I’ll have to start reading more of Alice Ferring and I’ll check out Asimov’s recent post.
Gary: Point well taken. I think the resale factor is probably 75% (or more) of those that are unhappy. That aside, it’s still just too bad that people (consumers) get that worked up over a few points. The outrage over the amount of 100 point wines by the people at Squires Forums is just humorous!